Now, all three men were married, fathers, and rarely left club property after dark. Lucky and Bulldog were also directly under Ghost in the club’s hierarchy. Bear was an officer, but didn’t have the authority that the other two had.
Ghost tossed the broken glass in the empty pickle bucket he was using to collect it in and approached the front bar. “This is a surprise. To what do I owe this honor?”
Bear slapped his hand down on the counter and announced in a loud voice, “Bar wench, your finest bourbon!”
Ghost just blinked at him as Lucky smacked his oldest friend upside the head. Bulldog took a seat on one of the barstools.
“We thought we’d come have a chat with you,” the SAA told him. Like Bear, the man was huge. At six-five, he was intimidating, but add in the long Dumbledore beard, tattoos, and bald head, and Bulldog looked very much like the stereotypical biker. The pink nail polish dulled the effect slightly. No doubt he’d had a tea party with his three year old today. From the glitter still in his beard, Ghost guessed he’d also been wearing fairy wings not too long ago.
“If this is an intervention,” Ghost growled, “all three of you can go back the way you came in and shove any thoughts of divorce up your asses.”
“It’s not,” Lucky assured him, taking a seat. “I saw you and Becks this morning, remember? And Bear saw the two of you together this afternoon. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the two of you are meant to be together.”
Ghost relaxed some. “Oh.” Now he felt bad for snapping at them. Sort of. He started to clean up the broken glass again. “Then my original question still stands: what are you doing here?”
Bulldog answered, saying, “Ranger sent me a message this afternoon, telling me that he’s moving in with Cameron.”
Ghost tried to keep the surprise off his face. He’d assumed Ranger would take a bedroom in the clubhouse. Technically, only prospects were required to live there, but each member was offered an apartment. They weren’t large or glamourous, but military barracks had a way of making any other living space feel like a mansion. Prior to moving into Steel’s old house, both Ranger and Ghost had apartments in the clubhouse, as well as sharing the one above the bar when long shifts kept them from wanting to return home for the remainder of the night. Now that space was used as extra storage, though there was still a couch where one could take a catnap if needed.
One of the former Honeys slipped behind the bar to fill an order. She waved at them, a polite smile on her face, as the four married men tried desperately to forget that they’d all slept with her at some point. On paper, the Honeys might have been housekeepers and cooks for the brothers, but there was no denying that the women had been hired to sleep with the club members. After the position had been abolished, Gracie was one of two former Honeys who had come to work for Ranger and Ghost at the bar. Ghost had been apprehensive at first about hiring Gracie and Monica, not wanting the bar to be turned into a brothel, but both women turned out to be good, loyal employees. In the two years they’d worked at the bar, there hadn’t been a single incident that made Ghost or Ranger regret taking them on. Monica had even gone back to school to finish getting her degree, and Gracie was now engaged to an accountant in Johnstown.
Bulldog waited for Gracie to pack up her tray and head back out before he continued. “From your nose, it’s obvious the two of you had it out. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really.” Ghost rolled up the rubber mat with the intent to take it out back and shake it off, but Lucky whistled over one of the prospects. Like the dutiful soldier he’d been less than a year ago, Jackson jumped into action, grabbing the mat from Ghost and dragging it outside. Ghost rounded on Lucky, raising an eyebrow.
The older man didn’t back down. “You’re not getting out of talking to us, Ghost. You and Ranger have too much history to allow you marrying Becks to get between you. Now, tell us what you talked about.”
Ghost’s hackles rose at the implication that his marrying Becks was the problem. “Want to braid my hair too while I pour my heart and soul out to you?”
“If that’ll get you talking,” Lucky said, calling Ghost’s bluff. “You forget, I raised one daughter to adulthood on my own. Braids don’t frighten me. I even know how to do a fishtail.”
Ghost had no idea what that even was. He knew knots, not braids. But arguing with his officers wasn’t going to make them go away any faster. “Fine. Ranger thinks I pressured Becks into marrying me, that I tricked her when she was vulnerable after being left at the altar. He understands that Becks is a grown woman who can date, or marry,” Ghost added pointedly, “whomever she wishes. But he does not understand why I rushed to marry her.”
Bear reached for the bowl of pretzels on the front bar’s counter. “Why did you?” he asked before popping a few into his mouth.
“Because she’smine,” Ghost snapped at his road captain. “I knew it, and now so does the world.” Or they would as soon as their goddamn rings arrived. He’d paid extra for rush shipping, but the engraving Becks wanted would take time. “Waiting would have changed nothing. I was getting my cut on her back and my ring on her finger either way.”
Lucky and Bear exchanged a look as Lucky scratched his jaw. “I get that, but you also have to give Ranger time to adjust. For him, it just seems like poor timing.”
A snort escaped Ghost, which all three of them caught and raised inquiring eyebrows to. Christ, why did he feel like he was back in high school, answering questions about whether or not his date and he had ‘done it’?
Rather than getting mad at his officers, though, Ghost took a deep breath and let it out. “Not that I owe any of you, or Ranger, an explanation for my actions, but there was more than one ill-timed comment that I made regarding the women in Ranger’s family.”
Lucky’s eyebrows drew down in suspicion. “You didn’t sleep with a cousin and then marry his sister, did you?”
“Fuck no!” Even the thought had acid rising in his gut, but Ghost was exceedingly grateful that he had met Becks when he had and hadn’t followed through with his plans to have a meaningless one-night stand with an available bridesmaid or wedding guest. “The night we arrived, I made a jab at Ranger about marrying his mom. It was ajest,” he immediately defended, pointing a finger at Bear when the man opened his mouth. “But I will admit a poorly-timed one with me meeting Becks the next morning.”
“And Ranger thinks you, what, are hopping through the women in his family?” Bulldog asked, confusion lacing his deep voice.
Ghost shrugged offhandedly. “Something like that.” Ghost shifted out of the way as Jackson brought the rubber floor mat back inside. “Look, what’s between Ranger and I right now is personal. I won’t allow it to affect the club. And if he wants to move in with his girlfriend, then that’s on him. I’m not going to hold his hand or wipe his ass.”
And as far as Ghost was concerned, it meant Becks and he now had the house to themselves, andthatmeant even more naked time outside the privacy of their bedroom. He could fuck her over their kitchen table while eating pancakes off her back if he wanted to.
Ghost was getting hard just thinking about it.
Glancing around the bar, Ghost noted how few patrons they had at the moment. Being a Tuesday night, it was average, but still did not require his personal supervision. Yeah, fuck this. Despite how tired he knew his wife was, Becks had told him to wake her when he got home so they could continue their efforts on getting her pregnant. Decision made, he picked up the terry cloth on the prep counter of the bar and tossed it into Lucky’s face.
The VP caught it—barely. “The fuck?”
